As summer heats up, many generous organizations continue to feed school children nutritious meals while they’re away from the school cafeteria. This effort is partially backed by findings of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers which found that students who don’t eat nutritious foods during the summer months can fall two/three months behind their [...]

What a great opportunity for a better4you brand to sponsor a clever retro fitness campaign in the schools!  NYC school PS75 recently promoted its newest health and exercise initiative by staging a double dutch demo for its students led by double dutch jump-rope championship teams from Japan. The school, which is the first in New [...]

Better4You brand marketers can learn something about what to call overweight children from a new survey by Yale University. The survey finds that parents prefer that doctors avoid the terms “fat” and “obese” and prefer the term “unhealthy weight,” when referring to their children.  More than 60 per cent of the 445 parents surveyed said referring to [...]

Although most kids don’t really write the family food shopping list, a research team from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that children do use manipulative nagging to get mom to buy specific items which may not be too healthy.  The researchers found that kids’ tendency to nag about particular products is the [...]

A new study verifies what moms and mom authors have been saying for some time: sneaking vegetables into kids’ foods increases their veggie intake and reduces their consumption of calories.  In a new article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers at Penn State’s Nutritional Sciences report they added pureed vegetables to foods given [...]

Babies born to women who took DHA (omega-3 fatty acids) during their pregnancy got fewer colds and shorter illnesses at one, three and six months of age, so say researchers at Emory University in Atlanta. The study published online on August 1 in Pediatrics followed 1,100 pregnant women and 900 babies in Mexico. [...]

Good news on the fast food better4you front:  McDonald’s’ announcement of healthier Happy Meals and a commitment to achieving generally more healthy menu offerings has been well received by  nutrition advocates, including First Lady Michelle Obama.  ”McDonald’s has continued to evolve its menu, and I look forward to hearing about the progress of today’s commitments,” said [...]

With national childhood obesity rates continuing as a major issue, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the August 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association have found that kids are eating more fast food at home and eating more store-prepared food away from [...]

When I was a kid I remember seeing various products sporting some of my favorite cartoon characters which immediately prompted an ask for said item from my parents.  I also remember Happy Meals quite fondly because of commercials I would see advertising the newest toy prize buried within. 
With obesity – and specifically childhood obesity – [...]

Looks like obesity in children is more complicated than just limiting calories, say researchers at the University of Illinois who are undertaking a longitudinal study of about 400 families with kids.  “We’re looking at diverse factors as genetic predisposition, the effect of breastfeeding, how much TV a child watches, and the neighborhood he lives [...]